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Act of Violence
Angels and Demons
Animal Kingdom
Argo
Armored Car Robbery
Angel Heart
Berberian Sound Studio
Bernie
The
Big Combo
The Big Heat
The
Big Knife
The
Big Sleep (1946)
Billion Dollar Brain
The
Black Angel
Blast of Silence
Born to Kill
Bound
Branded to Kill
Broken Embraces
Call Northside 777
Cape
Fear (1991)
Cell 211
The Chaser
Cold in July
Cold Weather
The Conversation
Crime Wave (1954)
(revisited)
Crimes at the Black House
Croupier
The Demon
Detour
Dexter
(Season 4)
Don't Look for Me
Double
Indemnity
Drive
Drug War
The East
Exam
Fargo
Femme Fatale
The File on Thelma Jordan
Frenzy
Get Carter (2000)
The Ghost Writer
The Gift
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
The Girl Who Played With Fire
(plus some additional thoughts)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Haywire
Headhunters
High and Low
A History of Violence
Honour
The House on 92nd Street
The Imitation Game
Jackie Brown
Jamaica Inn (1939)
Kill List
Kiss Me, Deadly
Kiss
of Death (1948)
Laura
Law Abiding Citizen
Leave Her To Heaven
The
Leopard Man
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Martha Marcy May Marlene
Memento
Miss Bala
A Most Wanted Man
Mother
Mr. Holmes
Mud
Nightmare Alley
(additional thoughts)
No Country for Old Men
No Man of Her Own (1950)
Noise
North by Northwest
Now You See Me
Out of the Past
Parker
A
Perfect Murder
Perversion Story
Phantom Lady
Phoenix
Private Hell 36
Psycho
A Quiet Life
Raw Deal (1948)
Revanche
The Red Riding Trilogy
Rififi
The Road to Perdition
Saboteur
The Scar
(revisited)
Scarlet Street
The Secret in Their Eyes
The Set-Up
Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror
Shanghai
Sherlock
(Series 1)
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows
Shock (1946)
Shutter Island
Side Effects
The Silence of the Lambs
(some additional thoughts)
A Simple Plan
Sleep Tight
The Square
The Sting
The Stranger (1946)
The Stranger By the Lake
The Street With No Name
Stoker
Suspense (television series)
The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)
The Thin Man
Three Days of the Condor
The Ticket of Leave Man
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Topkapi
Under Capricorn
Underworld
USA
Viva Riva!
A Walk Among the Tombstones
Winter's Bone
World for Ransom
The Yellow Sea
Young Sherlock Holmes
Zero Focus |
Raymond Chandler described
the landscape of the hard-boiled mystery, what the French called "roman noir,"
as a place where the streets are dark with something more than night. The
hardboiled stories of Chandler, Dashiel Hammett, James M. Cain, Cornell
Woolrich, Horace McCoy, David Goodis, Chester Himes, and Jim Thompson were
characterized by cynical fatalism, a brutal existentialism, and casual,
almost banal, nihilism. It's no wonder it was so appealing to the French.
Of course, not all mystery and supsense movies are descended
from the bleak worldview of the hard-boiled writers, but the films that
ARE descended from hard-boiled constitute their own sub-genre: Film Noir.
This is a grouping of films that collectively influence the rest of cinema
more than just about any other type of movie--out of all proportion to
their numbers or their box office success.
The poet laureate of the Mystery and Suspense movie is
Alfred Hitchock, a director whose films are suffused with such a darkness
of heart and which are mounted with such a mastery of cinematic technique that
his name has become an adjective. So distinctive is the stamp of Hitchcock's
anima on his films that many critics and viewers assign him his own sub-genre.
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